Santanu Sanyal

Kolkata , March 24

IF everything proceeds according to schedule, Numaligarh Refineries Ltd (NRL) in Assam will send by barges its first consignment of high-speed diesel in the middle of next month for discharge at Budge Budge in West Bengal. It is estimated that the round trip will take 35 days.

The first trial shipment of NRL products by barges was undertaken by the Central Inland Water Transport Corporation (CIWTC), the public sector barge company, in 1996; it took several months to complete the journey by the river route which passes through Bangladesh.

Vivada Inland Waterways Ltd, a Kolkata-based private barge company that has secured the contract for undertaking the forthcoming shipment, will place two barges, `Naharkatiya' (capacity 1,800-dwt vessel) and `Barauni' (1,200-dwt vessel), at Silghat - a place on the banks of the Brahmaputra river and about 100 km from the Numaligarh refinery - for loading the high-speed diesel.

The distance between the refinery and Silghat will be covered by tanker lorries.

At Silghat, the refinery authorities have constructed a jetty and created handling facilities at an estimated cost of Rs 30 lakh to be reimbursed by the Inland Waterways Authority of India.

Naharkatiya and Barauni belong to the CIWTC but have been acquired on bare boat charter by Vivada for two years, according to Mr M.V. Nath, Chairman of Vivada.

"NRL wanted us to evacuate at the rate of 10,000 tonnes per month but we will not be able to evacuate more than 2,500 tonnes or so because of capacity constraints," Mr Nath told Business Line. There is no question of going for construction of new barges for the purpose, as the refinery authorities would not extend the current contract beyond two years in view of the pipelines whose construction is due for completion by that time, he added.

Mr Nath, however, indicated that his company might go for new construction provided NRL entered into a long-term contract for evacuation of naphtha out of the refinery by barges.

An estimated 10,000 tonnes of naphtha would have to be evacuated every month and the pipeline network would be of no use.

The evacuation of petroleum products out of the refinery has been a matter of concern to the NRL authorities, so much so that the 3-million tonnes per annum capacity refinery is often required to scale down operation because of stock accumulation.

Road movement of products is undertaken to cater to the requirements in the neighbouring areas while the bulk of the outward movement is supposed to be undertaken by the Railways. For whatever reasons, the Railways has not always been able to place enough wagons to evacuate the required volumes, hence the need for barge movement.

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